Jewelry Box

This was the first project I made after setting up and calibrating the used 6” Rockwell jointer and 15” Delta DC380 planer I bought.

I didn’t want to pick something easy to make for my first project, and I wanted to learn something new in the process. This fit the bill nicely.

The woods used in this box are maple, walnut, curly/fiddleback maple, curly maple veneer.

I used plans from Traditional Box Projects by Strother Purdy, and I quite prefer my choice of woods to his. ;)

I had never designed a piece with different woods in mind, having to envision how the finished piece will look.

Prior to this project I had never done any veneering. The inside of the hanging necklace compartments and both sides of the necklace doors are veneered, using plastic resin glue. Quite pleased with the result!

I love working with walnut but wanted maple to be the predominant specie. I had to find a couple subtle ways to add a bit more walnut, besides the tapered legs. I decided to make the face of the dovetailed drawers in walnut, so the dark pins would peek out the sides when opened (since the front is glued up with a fiddleback maple face). Another opportunity arose when I realized I didn’t have a piece of fiddleback maple wide enough for the top of the box. A 3/16” strip of walnut sandwiched between two pieces of fiddleback and voila! But my, what a pain it was to perfectly align that strip when attaching the top pieces to the box. Darn tricky to get all the spaces between the front drawers exactly the same too.

I’m also relatively inexperienced with finishes, so this piece offered yet another learning experience. 2 coats of General Finishes sanding sealer, 3 coats of General high performance gloss top coat, and a coat of Clapham’s beeswax polish.

All in all, a sometimes enjoyable, sometimes frustrating project…but I’m glad I did it! And to top it off, the person who got it has it completely filled. Last thing I wanted was for it to go unused!

I wish I had taken better pictures. The drawer fronts don’t appear nearly as fetching as in person.

I agree majuvla, the tapered legs are very nice. They’re only tapered on the outside faces, so they were easy to make on my table saw once I figured out how to design the tapering jig (the book used a bandsaw to cut near to a pencil line, then a belt sander to approach the line). A few passes on the table saw and a bit of sanding and I was good to go. After the fact, even if I had a bandsaw I’d do it again on a table saw.